


Imprints

by cat_77



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Burns, Character Study, Frostbite, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 19:39:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2633807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heat and cold, fire and ice.  Both left an imprint, but in so very different of ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imprints

**Author's Note:**

> For the "burns" square at hc_bingo.
> 
> * * *

The heat was different from the cold. He of course knew this at some level before experiencing it firsthand, yet it still came as a revelation to him nonetheless.

The cold burned, sunk into skin and bone until it numbed, until it grew warm again, until you no longer cared about the trivialities of sensations of the flesh, until the world around you grew fuzzy and faded and you drifted off to nothingness. Heat, on the other hand, scorched and sizzled, kept every nerve ending firing until the very end, made you aware of each and every passing moment even as your body begged to give in and let go. Both required their own treatments of medicinal technology and time and both could scar and leave memories that you hoped were only nightmares even as you ached in tandem with the images enough to know the truth.

For some reason, these were the thoughts that passed through Steve's mind. Not hope that he would be found, not desperation to press against a branding weight too heavy even for his enhanced strength. Just a comparison, an analysis of sorts, a note of the similarities of damage and the difference of pain.

He had been burned before. The handle of a kettle left to boil for too long, the metal scaffolding of a Hydra compound ready to explode, an alien weapon with a just shy of deadly aim. He could remember the heat through the threadbare cotton padding, the scorch of leather against his palms, the odd not-quite fabric of a strange suit melting even as it helped to cauterize the wound. Those were small, inconsequential. This was so much more.

The smoke was acrid, almost metallic as it filled his lungs and choked his admittedly desperate breaths. It wasn't scaffolding, but the rebar and the heavy metal beams that created and supported the modern world that bore down on him now, superheated until they practically glowed with it, the flames licking at what he knew wasn't drywall but didn't have another name for it anyway. He could feel the warmth of the air against his face, his skin pulling tight as any hint of moisture within it evaporated, even as sweat poured down his forehead and dripped into his aching eyes.

The weight and the heat of the metal battled with the fancy material of his new protective gear. Or at least it did for all of about a minute before the metal clearly won and technology gave way to one of the most primal sources of nature. His skin was branded with it now, skin puckered and marked and aching, and he could only press against it with gloves long since whole, stomach sucked as far in as he was able to and still manage those few precious and suffocating breaths, in hopes of buying him just that little extra bit of time. If seventy years worth of technology had given way in a matter of seconds, he held little belief that simple flesh and bones and internal organs could do the same.

Against the crackle and pop of oxygen and alloy, he thought he heard something new. "Got him! Get a med team ready," a voice distorted and familiar sang above everything else. He sighed in relief for half a second before he realized the action pushed his diaphragm closer to the very thing doing its best to roast him from the outside in.

A red that was not of flames appeared before him, pinpricks of a blue-white that actually were glowed from strategic locations about the familiar suit. Servos and gears and possibly shear force of will made short work of what he himself had little luck against thus far, though the vast amounts of profanity that accompanied the action told him that the task was not nearly as simple as it looked.

His skin still crackled, the pain still lanced through him as he dared to lower his arms, as he dared to breathe again, only to cough hard enough to feel as though he were being ripped in two anyway. "Thank you, Stark," he managed, or hoped he did. He pressed his hand against the ground, intent to try to move, to try to push himself away from the worst of it, but it flared in new and agonizing ways instead. His eyes caught sight of the damaged flesh, red from something worse than blood, white from something determinedly not bone, highlighted by the orange of flames when the soft lining beneath the leather still burned.

He patted it out against his thigh, itself likely broken but thankfully no more than seared. "Yeah, I know," Tony replied as he seemed to look for a way to help him up. "Where's Dummy with his extinguishing-loving ways when you need him?"

Steve chuckled even though he knew he shouldn't. His body was healing even as it continued to be damaged, and he wanted very little aside from about a week and a half of sleep and maybe some painkillers, but he knew that wasn't really an option right now, and not just because one of those things hadn't worked since he had stepped into a poorly disguised lab roughly seven decades before and the other was something his team seemed to worry about and always manage to disrupt despite it proving to be the best option time and time again.

They surprised him though, and granted him nearly five whole days of barely interrupted sleep, leaving offerings of food and drink at his bedside that he would find when he woke. Bruce apologized for not being able to find anything to help with the pain, which was both considerable and far worse than he was used to in a very long time, and his friend seemed to take it as a personal failure more than anything else. 

So he faked it and pretended it wasn't that bad, even as he knew pressing heat would haunt his dreams as much as the bitter cold for many nights to come. He awoke each morning in an agony that became more and more phantom as the red faded to pink and the molted wrinkles melted to smooth. Soon enough, he knew he would be able to push that to the side, to the same secret place that only emerged in lonely shadows away from concerned faces. Maybe the heat would cure the cold, or the ice cool the burn over time. Maybe the memories of his friends, each and every one of them, fighting to reach him and fighting to stay by his side until he was healthy and hale again would win out over the memories of sinking alone into the abyss.

He flexed his hands and felt the newness stretch and pull, tingle against nothing but the cool air of the room. He thought of kettles and scaffolding and rebar. He thought of being stripped to the bone and built anew. He thought of the hazy loneliness of the ice, and the sharp pressing presence of the flames. He thought of waking alone into a changed world, and waking surrounded by the familiarity of those he would have called strangers such a short time ago.

He would heal and the world would move on. On the surface, nothing would change, scars would fade until no trace of them remained. Deep within, he knew the opposite was so very true. 

 

End.


End file.
